Existential Analysis of a Man Thesis

This is a journey that requires the utmost steadfastness and the ability of face the truth. In existentialist terms, the world and all experience is essentially absurd and the more one questions the meaning of existence, the more the irrationality and absurdity of existence is revealed. However, this reality must be faced with acceptance and equanimity.

In the case of the protagonist of this short story, he is embedded in ordinary, everyday existence and refuses to acknowledge the absurdity of existence. Ziegler, like most people, is comfortable to hide behind a wall of logic and scientific rationality; the life of non-authentic existence. However, this illusion is destroyed by the alchemist's pellet that that undermines the illusion that the world is rational or structured in an orderly way.

What the author of this story is attempting to say is that the reality of existence must be faced in the existential journey towards truth.The strangeness and lack of conventional order that lies at the heart of all existence must be realized and accepted for what it is. It is only by so doing that that we achieve a truthful and honest authentic existence. However, the main chanter in this story is too conventional and attached to the conventional view of reality and he cannot cope with the realization of authentic existence.

Bibliography

Hesse,….....